Why You Should Attend DataStax Accelerate, from One Developer to Another
DataStax Accelerate, the world’s premier Apache Cassandra® conference, is right around the corner, taking place May 21–23 in Washington, D.C.
I couldn’t be more excited.
If you’re a developer, I know what you’re thinking. Why should I attend a conference when all of the talks are going to be available online once the event ends?
On LinkedIn, I recently made the case for why people like us should attend Accelerate in the flesh. In summary:
- You’ll have lots of opportunities to discuss the precise problems you’re experiencing with dedicated experts who aren’t trying to sell you anything and are simply excited to solve real-world problems.
- You’ll be able to approach the speakers in person. Yes, their talks will be online after the conference ends. But you can’t ask those key follow-up questions and get your own personal context for the content unless you are in the room.
- You’ll be able to attend a bootcamp to learn the basics of Cassandra if you’re new to it, and that is not something re-created or available later.
- You’ll meet like-minded developers you can share database battle stories with.
- Developers and administrators can take the Apache Cassandra certification exam for free when they attend the conference. Join thousands of engineers already certified on the industry’s most popular, massively scalable NoSQL database.
- You may even meet someone who introduces you to your next job.
The agenda is set, and no matter your skill level, role, or priorities, there’s something for everyone at DataStax Accelerate. Sessions are organized along these eight tracks:
- Track 1: Innovating with Apache Cassandra
- Track 2: Building Modern Applications
- Track 3: Succeeding with Operations and Administration
- Track 4: Deploying in the Cloud: Hybrid, Public, Private
- Track 5: Exploring Transformational Use Cases
- Track 6: Securing Your Application Data
- Track 7: Going Beyond Core Cassandra with Graph, Search, and Analytics
- Track 8: Accelerating Transformation in the Public Sector
Here are some of the sessions I’m looking forward to in particular.
1. DataStax Enterprise in Azure – Walgreens Path to Cloud-Based Microservices Applications
Sergiy Smyrnov, lead database architect at Walgreens, will explain why the leading pharmacy retailer chose to build its Rx Microservices Application Stack on top of DataStax. He’ll also explain how Walgreens is using DataStax and Apache Cassandra in the Microsoft Azure Cloud, including a discussion about the implementation of DataStax Enterprise security features, such as LDAP, SSL/TLS, TDE, and audit capabilities.
2. Data Modeling Is Dead … Long Live Schema Design!
Pascal Desmarets, CEO of Hackolade, will make the case that while many organizations believe that data modeling is a bottleneck that doesn’t fit in with an agile development approach, that’s a distorted perception. Learn why Desmarets believes data modeling needs to be reinvented for the agile age and how his company is using Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise to make it all happen.
3. Streaming Cassandra into Kafka
Andrew Prudhomme and Abrar Sheikh of Yelp will explain Data Pipeline, the company’s robust stream processing ecosystem that includes a Cassandra Source Connector that streams data updates made to Cassandra to Kafka in real time. The duo will also discuss how Yelp uses Cassandra CDC and Apache Flink to produce a Kafka stream that contains the full content of each modified row, as well as its previous value.
4. Running a Globally Distributed Cassandra Cluster on Kubernetes in the Cloud
Mike Treadway, principal cloud architect at IBM, will discuss how to get a Cassandra cluster up and running in Kubernetes—and one that is globally distributed and operationally viable. This session will focus on the technical and operational issues that IBM encountered in this type of environment, as well as the solutions they’ve implemented to solve those problems.
5. Doing a Large-Scale Data Migration Without Downtime and During Regular Business Hours
Troy Motte, lead software developer at Siemens, was recently tasked with moving billions of records from MySQL to Apache Cassandra and changing all of the legacy logic. This talk will focus on how he was able to complete the migration gradually and without any major headaches.
That’s just a little taste of what you can expect at the conference. And there’s a whole lot more. Check out the full schedule of sessions here.
Better yet, go ahead and register now! I look forward to seeing you there.